


the ones who walk away

by surgicalstainless



Category: The Losers (2010)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Yuletide 2015, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalstainless/pseuds/surgicalstainless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Losers split up after the helicopter went down. </p><p>They humped it to the nearest road, five dead men in filthy jungle fatigues and a loose formation held together now by nothing more than habit, and when they left the wilderness it all fell apart. </p><p>Cougar and Jensen walked away together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the ones who walk away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redleather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redleather/gifts).



> ...who just wanted some Cougar/Jensen. Hope you like it!

The Losers split up after the helicopter went down. 

They humped it to the nearest road, five dead men in filthy jungle fatigues and a loose formation held together now by nothing more than habit, and when they left the wilderness it all fell apart. 

The colonel went left. Roque followed him, silent, malignant, just like always.

Cougar went right. Jensen went right too, before he'd even thought about it, because _of course_ he was with Cougar.

Pooch hesitated, there in the dust on the side of the road, looking left then right as they all walked away. Jensen looked back just in time to see Pooch shake his head sadly and then trot off after Clay and Roque.

If anyone'd asked, Clay would probably have muttered something about how it was smarter to split up, how a group of gringos would be more conspicuous than ones or pairs. Truth was, Jensen thought, they just couldn't stand the sight of each other any more.

——

The day stretched into a long, hot afternoon, and Jensen followed Cougar's boots.

They were in the middle of nowhere, as far as he could tell, and the road was seldom traveled. Normally Jensen would have spun into a running commentary on their march — ha, _running_ — but everything he started to say just fell off his tongue like so many lead balloons, so he gave up. Cougar was silent — big surprise there — but his strides were purposeful, and Jensen fell in behind.

Marching was easy. It had that comfortable familiarity to it, not too far removed from every road march Private Jensen had ever done, from Basic on out. He matched his strides to the feet in front, set his body to "autopilot," and let his mind wander for a while.

That was a bad idea, it turned out. Normally his thoughts went every which way, leaping from tangent to inference to wild idea. Today, though — today every line of thinking went to the same place. No matter which thread he tried to follow, they all came back in the end to a fireball in the sky, to burned teddy bears and a dangerous voice on the radio. Those thoughts made a knot he couldn't skip over. New threads added to the tangle: Uniformed officers knocking on Jess' door. Pooch's wife without anyone to hold her hand at the ultrasound appointments. Birthday parties and Christmases and empty places at the table...

_No._

Jensen looked down at his hands. His head was swimming, and the hands wobbled, but there they were. His fingernails had mud under them. There was a scratch across on one palm that had beaded a few drops of blood. 

_Focus._

They weren't dead yet. Jensen picked his head up and concentrated on the here and now instead.

The jungle was a lot noisier than Jensen expected. He'd thought, middle of nowhere, no machines grumbling and no people to disturb the peace. Turned out the "peace" was pretty freaking disturbing on its own. The air was full of insect noise; the combined force of a million buzzing wings and clicking mandibles set up a screaming that drowned out even the ringing in Jensen's ears. Birds shrieked overhead. Sometimes from the jungle came a deeper, coughing snarl that Jensen figured had to be some kind of animal. He tried to pick out shapes in the shadows of the treeline until he gave himself the heebie-jeebies.

Okay! Back to Cougar's boots, always so steady, trudging through mile after mile. They hadn't seen anyone else all afternoon. Where did this road even go? Did Cougar know?

Jensen bounded up a few steps to come even with his teammate. "Hey, Cougs —"

Cougar swung to face him, his teeth bared in a snarl. The feral look vanished in a half-second, but that was enough. Jensen stopped in his tracks, and so did Cougar.

Cougar's breath came quick, like it did when he was lining up a shot, but his eyes were wild and red-rimmed. Jensen thought he'd studied all his friend's expressions, learned to read every mood and every little thing Cougar didn't say, but there was something in his face now Jensen had never seen before. It scared him.

"Hey, Cougs," he said again, but this time his voice was softer, something gentle. Jensen held his hands out, open wide, and took a step forward.

Cougar just looked at him, desolate.

Jensen felt all at sea. Cougar was supposed to be imperturbable, the silent badass, but now... Jensen was filled with an urge to _help_ somehow. He allowed himself one agonizing moment of _shit shit what do I do_. Then he took another step forward, and slowly reached to put his hands on Cougar's shoulders.

"Hey Cougs, it's okay, we'll be all right, just you and me here, nothing to worry about, we're gonna be fine..." For once in his life Jensen was grateful for his motormouth. He just let himself babble soothing inanities as he backed Cougar step by step away from the roadside and into the sheltering line of trees.

Cougar went, unresisting. That blankness scared Jensen most of all, a cold hand gripping deep in his gut, and he responded to it on instinct. He tightened his hands on Cougar's shoulders until his fingers dug into the muscle a little, and when Cougar's back hit the trunk of a broad jungle tree, Jensen kept moving.

He moved all the way into Cougar's space, until they were pressed together from knee to chest. Various bits of their gear poked uncomfortably; Jensen moved what he could and ignored the rest. He let his weight be an anchor, something to speak to ancient animal instincts in a way words never could. _I am here_ , he let his body say. _You are here_. 

It wasn't a hug, not quite, Jensen's fingers still digging into too-tense muscle. He slid his hands deliberately down Cougar's arms. Cougar had rolled his sleeves up at some point during their march, and the shock of skin against skin as Jensen reached his bare forearms was visceral and immediate. Cougar felt cool against his palms, despite the heat of the day, so Jensen kept his hands there, willing some warmth and comfort to transfer with the touch.

This close, Jensen could feel the rise and fall of Cougar's chest — too fast, too fast — and Cougar's heartbeat, fluttering like a hunted thing. He widened his stance a little, until they were closer to the same height; eye to eye, except Cougar wouldn't meet his. Jensen lowered his head until he could fit it into the space under the brim of Cougar's hat, pressed his forehead to the side of Cougar's neck, and just _breathed_.

He breathed deliberately, thought about filling his lungs and emptying them, all the way to the last little crevice. He used his bulk to make its own statement, ribcage expanding against Cougar's sure like the tides, like gravity.

With each exhale, strands of Cougar's hair fluttered across Jensen's parted lips. They tickled, and Cougar's scarf itched a little against his ear, but the irritations were easy to ignore. Cougar smelled like sweat and mud, bug spray and cordite, the awful stinging stink of charred flesh and burning aviation fuel. Under all that, though, he smelled like _Cougar_ , the scent safe and familiar after dozens of missions, years living cheek by jowl. Jensen closed his eyes and hoped his own unwashed pungency would mean the same for Cougar.

Time hung suspended, and all the world went away save for their small bubble of body pressed against body. It seemed to Jensen as if the noises of the jungle faded out, nothing left but the tidal wash of his and Cougar's breathing, the syncopated thudding of their hearts. Jensen wondered where Cougar had gone — if he'd been caught in the same spiral of awful thoughts that had tried to drag Jensen down. He rubbed small soothing circles on Cougar's forearms with his thumbs.

 _It's okay,_ he thought very hard in the direction of Cougar's brain, _we walked away._

How many heartbeats later — a hundred? a thousand? more? — Cougar took a shuddering breath, let it out in a sigh, and relaxed all at once. He bowed his head to lean against Jensen's shoulder, the brim of his hat casting them both into shadow. Jensen peeked, but from his perspective all he could see was the stubbled underside of Cougar's jaw, the line of his throat, working as Cougar swallowed. The little movement brushed against Jensen's eyelashes, like a... an Eskimo kiss, Jess had called it when they were kids, and Jensen shut his eyes again at the sudden rush of emotion.

He must have made some movement, because Cougar lifted his hands then and gently rested them on Jensen's hips. He hooked his thumbs over Jensen's belt, and one of them found skin where Jensen's shirt had come untucked. The contact was light at first, just a brush, and then a more deliberate slow circle to echo the ones Jensen had made on Cougar's arms. It felt _electric_ all out of proportion, like whole new pathways in Jensen's brain were lighting up at the touch.

Jensen blinked, damp eyelashes fluttering over the tender skin of Cougar's throat, and made himself relax, too. Cougar rewarded him with another brush of his thumb, and Jensen shivered, heart in his throat.

"Yeah," Jensen heard himself say, his exhale a hot, damp cloud in the close space between them. He wasn't sure what he meant, but it didn't seem to matter. "Yeah."

Cougar sighed again, perhaps in agreement. Together they stood there, two dead men in the Bolivian jungle, holding on, holding each other up.

——

When they pulled apart, when Cougar dropped his hands from Jensen's hips, raised his head from Jensen's shoulder, and finally met his eyes —

Jensen stepped back reluctantly, resenting the wash of cool air down his front where Cougar’s body heat had been. He kept his face tilted down, to put off for a few more seconds whatever came next. It was going to be weird, he was sure of it. Jensen felt his shoulders begin to hunch. _I couldn't think what else to do._

A touch, the barest brush of fingertips over the back of his clenching fist. Jensen risked a glance up through his lashes, and there was Cougar: same old Cougs, yet not the same at all.

Jensen had thought he might feel a loss, had worried it would be awkward or something. Man, he’d been _way_ off. It almost felt like they'd just been glued together with ancient primordial ooze, and now a thin ribbon of slime stretched between them and refused to be broken. Or — okay, that was gross — as if something new had been born into the universe, and it hovered around them like a cloud, inchoate and heavy with possibility.

They weren't soldiers any more. They weren't _anything._

Jensen took a deep breath, giddy at the thought of all those beginnings. Cougar's dark eyes, when he met them, were something like serene. 

"Where are we going?" Jensen asked as they left the shelter of the trees.

Cougar bumped Jensen's shoulder with his own as they fell into step side by side on the dusty, nameless road. " _Lejos de aquí_ ," he said. "Away from here."

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [tumblr](http://z-delenda-est.tumblr.com), if you want!


End file.
